Jodi Saunders knew she wanted to be a teacher from the time she was a young child, when she taught her younger brother and dolls in her family’s basement.
That she’d spend her career in Champaign County, though, wasn’t necessarily expected. The South Dakota native originally moved to Champaign-Urbana to attend the University of Illinois, and she never left. After teaching for seven years at Bottenfield Elementary School in Champaign and five at Leal Elementary School in Urbana, Saunders is now in her fourth year teaching second grade at St. Thomas Catholic School in Philo.
The joy she finds in teaching is transferred to her students, like when she took her class “around the world” by creating passports and pretending to travel to a different country each day.
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